The increasing occurrence of the woody breast (WB) myopathy is an emerging poultry meat quality problem in broiler-breast meat production. Chicken breasts with this muscle-tissue abnormality, or myopathy have an uncharacteristically hard or rigid feel and/or shape irregularities. The WB myopathy results in decreased fresh meat quality, inferior yield in processed products, diminished nutritional quality, potential product condemnations, and reduced customer/consumer acceptance. WB fillets may also create problems for processors during fillet portioning and further processing due to altered shape and rigidity issues.
Unfortunately, an objective method to rapidly and non-destructively detect the WB myopathy has not been developed. The state-of-the-art technology for diagnosing/identifying WB myopathy is human observation and touch. Consequently, identification is time consuming and subjective. There is no agreed-upon quality standard or easily-measurable characteristic that an inspector can rely on to exactly determine whether a breast fillet is considered to be woody without handling the breast fillet.
The need exists for a system to quickly, accurately, and objectively identify poultry breasts that exhibit the WB myopathy. The system described herein comprises a machine vision system that can be used to identify boneless chicken breasts with WB myopathy in real time as the breasts move down a conventional conveyor. System operators can program the system with a standardized set of criteria so that chicken breasts with WB myopathy are identified based on an agreed-upon standard. The data regarding all inspected chicken breasts can be recorded and further scrutinized (as appropriate) by meat inspectors, quality control personnel, and/or potential/actual customers.